Transforming Spirituality: Integrating Theology and Psychology

"We are spiritual beings attempting to become mature, healthy, and whole human beings. Why is this so difficult and how do both theology and psychology assist us in this process? Shults and Sandage provide the answer by integrating reforming theology with transforming spirituality in a stunning interdisciplinary project that will immediately become the lodestar for a whole new generation of integrative studies. We have already seen the turn to relationality in philosophical anthropology as well as in interpersonal psychology. We are relational beings created in the divine image. Taking seriously the darker side of human spirituality as the sin that isolates and alienates us from the grace of divine presence and healthy human relationships, the authors describe and demonstrate a transforming spirituality that is biblically sound and therapeutically effective. Hurting humanity, wounded in spirit, needs pastors, counselors, and therapists who are equipped to understand the deep spiritual dimensions of that hurt and to become agents of transformation, change, and growth. This is the book that I should have read twenty years ago and should have had my students who were preparing to be pastors and therapists read. Here it is. Read it!"--Ray S. Anderson, formerly senior professor of theology and ministry, Fuller Theological Seminary

"Transforming Spirituality takes the recent discussion of spirituality to an entirely new level. Theological depth and interdisciplinary sophistication combine in a book deeply committed to the church. An outstanding contribution."--Richard R. Osmer, Thomas W. Synnott Professor of Christian Education, Princeton Theological Seminary

"Persons who work across the disciplines of theology and the social sciences will find this book crucial to their own research, teaching, and writing. Those who do not will find themselves challenged to venture out for a new view. This is what theology can look like when it does not lose its own way and when it is enlivened and deepened with insights from the social sciences!"--Janet Ramsey, professor emeritus of pastoral theology and ministry, Luther Seminary

"I've never seen a book quite like this. It brings together careful scholarship, theological sophistication, and a familiarity with the suffering and setbacks of real people in real relationships. Each time I turned the page, I found something new and surprising to catch my attention. Shults and Sandage do no less than provide a vision of how the integrative enterprise would be different if psychology and theology were fundamentally relational in nature. Theoretically rigorous and immensely practical. This is a book for grown-ups. Highly recommended."--Michael E. McCullough, professor of psychology, University of Miami

"As I consider what I've read over my professional career, I cannot contemplate a more important and transformative book. Its depth, expanse, and engagement with subjects as diverse as Orthodoxy, Reformed theology, apophatic mysticism, psychodynamic interpersonal depth psychologies, sex therapy, quantum physics, and the sorrow, desire, and joy of being human are a breathtaking glory of imagination. This is the gift of two passionate authors, whose labor is really a doxology, an encounter with the Spirit, that will animate wonder and prompt countless conversations. We may finally have the starting point for articulating a truly believing, postmodern spirituality."--Dan B. Allender, profssor of counseling, The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology; author, The Wounded Heart, To Be Told, and Leading with a Limp